The New York Times Issues a Correction

The Political Times column last Sunday, about a generational divide over racial attitudes, erroneously linked one example of a racially charged statement to the Tea Party movement. While Tea Party supporters have been connected to a number of such statements, there is no evidence that epithets reportedly directed in March at Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, outside the Capitol, came from Tea Party members.

Andrew Breitbart, who, as the president is wont to say, got in the MSM’s faces, and punched back twice as hard against these lies, responds:

The Times is admitting that there is absolutely no evidence that any epithets were shouted at the Congressman by any member of the Tea Party.

This correction demonstrates we have finally proven our point to the nation’s most eminent and influential liberal media organ: that Rep. Andre Carson lied when he told the AP that members of the Tea Party hurled the “N-word” 15 times during the March 20 health-care rally that took place at the U.S. Capitol.

That’s great, as far as it goes – a thorough vindication of the Tea Party — but it doesn’t go far enough.

It’s not enough for the Times to make a correction having let that calumny sit out there unrebuked for weeks and months and then, way after the fact, issue a correction.

It’s not enough because the Times continues to imply that something racially charged might happened on the steps of the Capitol, when we have shown conclusively, via multiple videos of the moment in question, that nothing of the sort occurred.

Andrew adds:

It’s not enough because the Times correction is just the beginning. The same correction needs to come from every other major media outlet that blithely repeated this defamation, including the AP, the Washington Post, The Hill, and MSNBC – not just in their news columns, but in their editorials, op-ed and opinion columns and shows as well. Until then, there will be no closure, because the Tea Party will not stop in its pursuit of vindication until the same media effort that went into propagating this lie goes into dispelling it and giving the millions of Americans – 23% of whom are minorities, according to Gallup — their good name back.

Which media outlet is going to have the courage to air the exculpatory videos?

Which will be the first to admit that Congressman Carson lied about the events of that day? That he slandered the Tea Party and had his charges believed by a gullible press corps that did no reporting and pursued no corroboration from among the 400 people and the Capitol Police officers whom Carson claimed had witnessed the event?

Why? Because it didn’t “fit the narrative.’

We are not going to stop until, in our pursuit of justice for the falsely maligned Tea Party, the MSM airs the exculpatory evidence. And to air them is just to expose a massive government-crafted fraud, it shows the moral emptiness at the core of the media. Those videos are the elephant in the room.

What’s at the center of this national racial mess is a cynical political ploy created by President Obama and elected Democrats, and executed with the help of their media allies and activist groups like the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus, to gin up the base for 2010 and take the spotlight off a faltering economy, a bungled Gulf oil spill cleanup, a soaring national debt, and a deeply unpopular health care bill.

The real problem is that once stuff like this gets initial broad coverage, even when later proven erroneous, it remains ‘true’ simply because it was initially said over and over and from different sources. How much of what we ‘know’ is wrong because our first hearing became ‘positioned’ in our conciousness? A lot of it.

The damage is done. A little retraction of page 12 isn’t going to change much.

While Tea Party supporters have been connected to a number of such statements

I find the clause above insulting and tendentious. Has any “tea party supporter” in particular made such a statement and not been reprimanded or ejected from tea party rallies by other attendees? Where is the evidence for same? It is true that attendees at a rally physically assaulted a black man and injured him, but they were SIEU thugs and not tea party supporters.
There have been some examples of Democrats posing as tea partiers making obnoxious statements but whom does that discredit?
Biden and other leading Democrats, on the other hand have been widely quoted making racially charged comments about blacks.
The Times retraction contains the insinuation that racist comments are typical of tea party participants. That seems to me to be false.
The Times should preface reports mentioning the Democratic Party with the clause, “While leading Democrats have been connected with a number of such (racist) statements”
That would have the virtue of being true.

I have been boycotting the MSM for many years (and I would include Fox insofar as their “straight” news). I invite my fellow “rightwingers” who only ask for a restoration of constitutional government such that existed prior to the New Deal to join me.

Someone ought to remind Rep. Lewis also that Bull Connor was not in or of Georgia, much less Atlanta, whose desegregation was far more orderly and peaceful than its neighbors. He should know that, really. It’s his own district after all.

1. They make an unsupported allegation about other tea-party racist statements. Thats what got them into this mess.

2. They imply (quite strongly) that somebody made racists statements at the capital… but they just can’t prove 100% that they were teapartiers. Wink.

A REAL retraction would explain that there is no evidence, despite mounds of video and audio evidence, that any racial slur was uttered by anyone that day. This pile of garbage was a non-apology apology that managed to make further unsupportable claims.

I’d agree that this finally gets the Times to admit that there’s no evidence that any racial remarks were spewed. I wouldn’t agree that this proves that there were not any – it just means it’s the Congressman’s word against the protesters (and some video recordings which may or may not have caught everything). Not that I think any such remarks were uttered occurred; in fact, if a definitive video existed and prior to seeing it I had the opportunity to bet as to whether or not racial insults were given I’d easily bet that they weren’t. But we should still hold ourselves to high standards of reason, even if the MFM does not.

You’ve got to be joking!
If the story is fake, then there are no ‘facts’! It cannot be accurate, any more than other fictional piece.
And the narrative isn’t as true as you really, really want it to be if there are no facts to support it.
Anywhere.

We hate it because, however falsely, the smear heartened their flock and once again spooked the GOPless Wondercrats. This is a good forum to vent our frustration. But we’re missing the point; this isn’t about admitting anything, this is a form of ‘Cheat-and-Retreat’. By issuing the “retraction” they’ve done the minimum required to cover themselves legally, making lawsuit(s) nearly impossible to win. After they’ve beaten the storyline into our collective heads, that is.

there is no evidence that epithets reportedly directed in March at Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, outside the Capitol, came from Tea Party members.

I don’t know if you-all read what I read, so I put it above for you. This is a non-retraction. They’re saying that they don’t know if those epithets came from Tea Partiers – the issue is that there were no epithets from *anybody* that we know of that day. Sorry, I’m unimpressed. It’s like they’re sorry for being caught.

I’m not one to defend the Times, but I have been known to split hairs. It is true that epithets were “reportedly” directed at Mr Lewis, it’s just that the reports came from Mr Lewis and other politicians in his entourage. Equally, it’s not true that there is “no evidence” that any epithets were uttered, it’s just that the only evidence is the reports from those same politicians. If the Times was credible in its reporting, it would somewhere work in the phrases “despite the existence of multiple recordings of the event in which no epithets can be heard”, and “the unclaimed prize of $100,000 for evidence substantiating the Congressman’s claims.”